May1, 2008

Washington, DC – House Armed Services Committee
Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) delivered the following speech
in the U.S. House of Representatives today concerning the
state of U.S. military readiness and the prospects for
success in Afghanistan:

“Mr. Speaker, in matters of national security,
experienced leaders never forget that the unexpected is
always just around the corner and that danger is never far
away. The Roman orator Cicero immortalized these ideas
in his story about the Sword of Damocles.

“Damocles, a citizen of the ancient Greek city
of Syracuse, wanted to be king for a day. The king
agreed to this request, and Damocles feasted and reveled with
fine meals and wine. Only after his merry making did Damocles
discover that a razor sharp sword, suspended by a single
thread, hung over his head all day. Damocles was immediately
cured of his desire to rule.

“When I consider the challenges confronting
U.S. national security today, I see not one but two swords of
Damocles dangling above us. The first danger concerns
the strain current operations place on U.S. military
readiness, and the second concerns the deterioration of
security and stability in Afghanistan.

“Military readiness ratings measure how
prepared U.S. forces are to perform their assigned combat
missions. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, more than
six years of war have resulted in serious readiness
shortfalls, with our Army and Marine Corps ground forces
experiencing the most acute problems. In spite of
efforts to fill the gaps in equipment, training, and
personnel, readiness deficiencies serious enough to cause
alarm last year have only continued to expand.

“Today, two-thirds of the Army’s combat
brigades in the U.S. are not ready for duty. Units in
the U.S. are suffering from shortages of personnel, and units
are preparing for deployment without having had all of their
assigned personnel or equipment during training. To
fill shortfalls in Army personnel, the Navy and Air Force are
supplying over 20,000 troops to conduct ground force tasks
such as convoy security and logistics support.

“While U.S. military forces are getting by,
painfully, and performing today’s missions despite
readiness shortfalls, we are simply not prepared for the
emergence of a new conflict. Experience tells me that
we cannot assume another crisis won’t come our
way. In my 31 years in Congress, the U.S. has been
involved in 12 significant military conflicts, none of which
were predicted beforehand. Because we can’t know
with complete certainty what dangers lurk around the corner
or when they might strike, we need the insurance policy
military readiness provides for America’s security.

“Our current readiness situation demands a
massive investment of time, effort, and money to restore our
full capability. Of course, devoting the resources
required to solve our readiness problems will force us to
make painful tradeoffs with some elements of modernization,
which is tomorrow’s readiness. But with current
readiness levels, this is a predicament our nation cannot
avoid – it is simply a cost we must bear.

“The second danger I worry about is the
deterioration of security and stability in Afghanistan.
For too long, the war in Iraq has overshadowed the real war
against terrorism in Afghanistan. While the military
effort there is actually a qualified success, the political
effort at this point is not, and the benefits of economic
progress are far too uneven. Too many Afghan citizens
do not yet see tangible improvements in their daily
lives. The effort in Afghanistan is not really
reconstruction, but the creation of a stable, secure, and
unified nation which has never existed.

“The recent decision to send an additional
3,200 Marines to Afghanistan is a necessary and positive step
in the right direction, but that alone will not be
sufficient. This undertaking is gargantuan and requires
a far more significant effort than the United States or our
allies have been willing to commit. History will judge
us very harshly if our focus and effort in Afghanistan is
insufficient to the task. A failure of the mission
there would not only damage our security, it would also
seriously damage NATO.

“So how do we deal with these twin
challenges? To start, we must focus on our
nation’s strategic priorities to find the right balance
between near term needs and the long term health of our
military. We must address the imbalance in our
deployment and use of troops overseas, because our readiness
problems cannot be resolved as long as we continue to deploy
in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq. A responsible
redeployment of a large percentage of that force is a
strategic necessity.

“In addition, we must do first things first by
focusing on Afghanistan, just as in World War II we focused
more of our resources on Germany and the war in Europe until
that war was won. Finally, we must substantially
increase the use of our soft power – our diplomatic,
economic development, and strategic communications efforts
– in Afghanistan and around the world. We can and
should receive much more help from our allies. Together, the
U.S. and the international community must make the war in
Afghanistan a top priority and provide the leadership,
strategy, and resources necessary to ensure that Al Qaeda and
the Taliban are destroyed for good and that Afghanistan never
again becomes a safe harbor for terrorists.

“To his great credit, Secretary of Defense
Gates has been arguing for several of these solutions.
The truth is, though, that the U.S. has as much or more to
lose in Afghanistan as any other nation, and the same would
be true of whatever new conflicts emerge. Until our
country is prepared to lead and act decisively, these
problems will fester, and the threads holding up those twin
swords will stretch ever thinner.